Aware of the criticism, the film director addressed the negative feedback as well as the success of “12 Years” on “The Arsenio Hall Show.”

Among McQueen’s film critics is Armond White, who labeled the movie “torture porn” and later heckled the filmmaker as he accepted the best director award at the New York Film Critics Circle Awards. White was reportedly heard calling McQueen “an embarrassing doorman and garbage man.” In addition, the CityArts movie critic also screamed, “F**k you. Kiss my a**.”

Although he reportedly chose not to acknowledge White’s outburst at the time , Hall brought up the outburst while getting McQueen’s thought’s on such critiques of his Golden Globe award-winning film.

“It’s one of those things when where you make a movie like this, your going to get a lot of things thrown at you and because this kind of film hasn’t been made before,” McQueen said. “I wanted to give a real portrayal of slavery. Why hasn’t it been done before? I don’t know.”

“I think now people are willing to engage and look at a history, possibly for the first time in a way that they haven’t done before,” he added.

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